If you're trying to use a coaching style in 1:1s, here's how to develop it in meetings (and watch your team develop before your eyes)

 
I’m 99% sure you will already be familiar with using a coaching style with your team, particularly in 1:1s.

Let me help you extend this into all the meetings you go to.

It’s an important skill because almost every leader I speak to feels they are driving everything themselves and they want their team to step up.

They want them to take more responsibility and take action without being told - and to do so in a ‘safe’ way so nothing bad happens.

(In the same way, we all want to eat toast and butter for breakfast and still hit our protein goals)

If that’s you, I have two things for you.

You need to understand that...

1. Meetings are a theatre for culture - the style you use in meetings will set the tone and culture for your team and how they operate. A coaching style will definitely help you (unless you want to develop a culture of command and control - and no judgement here).

2. Coaching in meetings is THE way to encourage groups to start to step up, self organise and keep the work safe.

The problem is that meetings are a place that managers like to:

- Look smart in front of others

- Stay in control

- Keep their identity as leader

And these things work in opposition to the outcome you want: people stepping up, taking responsibility, self organising.

Let’s just play out a scenario.

You’re a manager in a fintech startup, in your weekly project meeting. The team is tackling a rollout issue - new customers aren’t engaging.

The product lead, starts explaining the problem and you jump into action. You know what to do here! You’ve seen a similar issue before, and she have three solutions ready to go.

Before you can stop yourself you say “Have we tried sending reminders through SMS instead of email? That worked last on the investment app we launched last year.”

The product lead says ‘Umm, yeah we could….” and you then offer a couple more options as well. “I wonder if we might try….” This is so important and you need it to be fixed fast.


“Shall we make a plan to do these” you say, and start to capture them in the comments.

That night, you vent to your sister. “Why do I always have to have the answers? And I have to drive them through as well!”

Your sister says “Because you’re good at what you do. But what if your job isn’t to have the answers, but to help your team find them?”

(OK, confession time - this was me 10 years ago, and probably more recently too. Honestly, when will I learn?!)

Enter a coaching style for meetings

Let’s go back to the coaching approach. I recently read Jude Sclater’s excellent book “Think Like A Coach” <— an absolute go to book for anyone who wants to develop a coaching style as a manager.

I have long advocated for a coaching style in meetings so I combed through it for expert advice that I could translate specifically for the regular meetings we do every single day.

(Just as a reminder, a coaching style is about giving people your attention and helping them think through questions that matter to them rather than advising or telling them. The idea is that better ideas and outcomes emerge and over time, they develop their insights, self-knowledge and confidence.)

Here are six ways you can coach people in meetings and develop problem solving, commitment and accountability within your team, whether you manage them or not.

1. Anchor the discussion with a powerful question

As you know, I advocate giving meetings a question to answer - so this is the perfect way to bring a coaching approach to the group.

Jude says: "Coach-like questions tend to be outcome focused, meaning that you’re asking your team member about what they want to happen in the future rather than asking them to talk about the past. Your team member already knows about their past and present but often they haven’t thought about what their ideal solution would look like."

💬 Example in the problem space: “What’s the real challenge here for us?”

💬 Examples in the solution space: “What do you think is the best way forward?”

🎯 Outcome: A deeper, more focused discussion.

✅ Why it works: It stops people from jumping into solutions too early. Specifically invites contribution. 
⚠️ Pitfall to avoid: Don’t let the question be rhetorical—pause and let people think.


2. Encourage people to say more and then shush while they say it

Jude’s first signature move in her coaching 2-step is to ask “Tell me more”

She says: “The purpose is to encourage them to keep thinking out loud. Remember that, if given space to talk out loud, your team member is more likely to solve their problem themselves. ‘Tell me more’ works well because it’s curious, non-judgemental and doesn’t lead the conversation with your assumptions or interpretations."

💬 Example: (After someone shares a challenge) “Tell me more.”

🎯 Outcome: People learn to think critically instead of deferring to you or people with more power.


✅ Why it works: It helps the speaker process their own thoughts rather than rely on you.


⚠️ Pitfall to avoid: Resist the urge to jump in with your own solution.




3. Translate that great 1:1 coaching trick - paraphrasing back - into the meeting setting

Jude’s second signature move in her coaching 2-step is to summarise what you've heard.

She says: “You don’t need to parrot everything back—just the essence of what you’ve heard. The more you’re talking, the less your team member is thinking. Hearing a summary of what they’ve said, especially hearing their own words, gives your team member another chance to hear their thoughts out loud and pick up any gaps in their thinking."


💬 Example: Just literally repeat the essence of what they said back to them and then wait (and keep listening)

🎯 Outcome: Deeper, more mature ideas, encourages more ownership and commitment.


✅ Why it works: It keeps the focus on the team, shows you are listening and moves the discussion forward.


⚠️ Pitfall to avoid: Don’t bring the attention back to your agenda with “I’m hearing you say X, so shall we Y?”

4. Demonstrate that you are actively giving people your full attention

Jude says: "Attention is your starting position and the most important aspect because it helps your team feel important and safe enough to think out loud with you without fear of punishment or humiliation (ie it contributes to psychological safety). You’ll know you’re coaching when you say very little and your team says a lot."

💬 Example: Use open relaxed body language to show you are listening to them, not waiting to speak yourself. Use eye contact. Stay quiet. Sounds simple - takes a lot of practice.

🎯 Outcome: More diverse contribution, more ‘edge’ contributions that can shift the narrative, conveys more trust and ownership.


✅ Why it works: It encourages people to voice or develop half-formed ideas that could lead to breakthroughs.


⚠️ Pitfall to avoid: Don’t let this open space privilege the ideas of the most vocal team members.

5. Create a new social contract at the beginning

If this is a big departure from how you usually lead meetings, people might feel unnerved by your silence and attention on them! So reset the contract.

Jude says: “Contracting is a way of establishing psychological safety by agreeing what’s acceptable, what’s not and how you’ll manage problems when they arise.”


💬 Example: You can keep it super-simple, no need for a philosophical debate “Today, we have some questions to think about and I’ll be in listening mode more than normal.”

💬 Over time you might try “What will we do if we don’t agree today?”

🎯 Outcome: People feel clear about what's going on and more likely to lean in and step up

✅ Why it works: It prevents confusion about the vibe, their role and next steps.


⚠️ Pitfall to avoid: Don’t assume people will get it and trust you first time. Prove you are listening over several meetings.

6. Turn energy into agreement and commitment

Jude says: "One of the benefits of being a coach-like manager is that it creates commitment and responsibility in your team members because they take ownership of what happens next. It’s the same when you tell a friend you’re going for a run – then you have to go. The trick here is to get your team member to be specific about the day, time and place they’re going to take action, so there’s no doubt.”

💬 Example: “What’s the next steps and how will we make that happen?”

🎯 Outcome: Clear ownership and momentum.


✅ Why it works: It turns conversation into action.


⚠️ Pitfall to avoid: Don’t let the meeting end with “great discussion” but no concrete actions.


⚠️ And another: Don’t ‘take over’ again with action planning at the end

⚠️ And one final one! Don’t give a weird vibe that, suddenly they are totallyresponsible for something you have driven for them up until this point. This can create unease and some 'whiplash' as the goalposts suddenly shift.

As a manager, it’s tempting (so tempting!) to have the answers but the best leaders create space for their teams to think and the practice really hard to do this consistently. Try just one of these coaching techniques in your next meeting and how it shifts the responsibility around the room.

👉 Which of these six techniques will you try first?

Also, don't forget to buy Think Like A Coach.